Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Sight words, sight words, sight words. They're so important but do you ever just get sick of teaching sight words? Let's be real, it can get tedious waiting for the light bulbs. UNLESS you have super fun ways to teach them, that is! And lots of different super fun ways because your kids will get bored. & Let's face it, you'll get bored too.

SO! What can you do?

I love anything hands-on. My current obsession is BOTTLE CAPS. You can use them for so many different things - write numbers, +, and = on them and have your students build number sentences, write letters on them and have your students build words or spell their name, write words on them and build sentences... seriously, bottle caps are awesome. I have an entire bottle caps unit that I'll post about eventually that has a bunch of different ways to use them but for today, we're focusing on SIGHT WORDS. So what is it I'm saying you should do??

Write letters on bottle caps and have them build sight words with them!

To make this idea come to life, I created what is now one of my favorite things: Secret Sight Words!

So what you do is you click on the sight words you want & print out the strips. They come like this:

Then my favorite part {because I'm a big dork} is to laminate them! You don't have to laminate them but I am just wayyy super excited about my handy dandy laminator I bought over the summer so I would basically laminate our pillows, sheets, and comforter if Mr. Giraffe let me. It was such a great purchase! It was about $35 at Walmart and it is A.W.E.S.O.M.E. It only takes a minute (seriously, a minute.) to warm up and the quality of lamination is great - it's very thick and durable feeling. Here's a picture of me using Lamar.

Yes, that's his name. Yes, I named him. But don't worry, Khloe, if you're reading this (because I'm sure you read teaching blogs all the time and obviously mine) - he's not named after the other Lamar. But anyway, I love my Lamar. Lammy for short. Don't judge me. :)

Then you cut them into little cards and write letters on a bunch of bottle caps. Water bottle caps are the perfect size! I like the clear ones because it makes the letters pop. You could be fancy and use clear ones for consonants and colored ones for vowels. I'm not that fancy but you could be. :) The best part about bottle caps is... they're free!! Well, I guess you have to buy the water/soda/whatever bottles technically buuut I'm pretty sure that even if you don't drink from bottles, your kids and kids' parents do and can bring in 9,394,034,827 bottle caps when you ask for them!

Set out the sight words you're learning that week and bottle caps with those letters on them and let your students be little word detectives!!

They look at each picture, figure out the beginning sound of the picture, and put that letter bottle cap underneath of it. They do this for each picture until they've spelled the secret sight word.

Simple, right? Kids LOVE it. They don't even realize they're getting soo much phonics practice figuring out the beginning sounds of each picture and it will really solidify their spelling & knowing where the letters are for each sight word since they had to figure out each letter.

A really smart idea someone who bought them told me they did was put them on a binder ring so the kids could pull them out whenever they wanted and do any sight word. You could also have different binder rings for different levels or different semesters. You could also send them home with students struggling with sight words and have them use dry erase markers at home to practice. Just an idea!

Once they find all their words, you can have them copy it onto one of the optional recording sheets I include in the pack.

The beauty of this station is that you can use however many sight words at once that you want and whichever ones you want, bring back old tricky ones to review, and you can change HOW they do the station to keep it fresh and exciting.

For this example, I used bottle caps but you can switch it up if the students ever start to lose the excitement over the station.
*Give them dry erase markers and have them write on the cards
*Give them alphabet magnets, alphabet blocks, really any kind of letter manipulative there is can be used with these as long as they relatively fit in the box.
I think switching it up is fun!

There are 335 sight words included in the pack so if you're wanting a particular sight word, it's probably in there! Because there are so many and I'm crazy love to organize, I included a clickable, alphabetical table of contents so you can just click on the sight word you want and it takes you right to it! I know I don't like clicking frantically through PDFs to find something in a hurry so I don't want you to either :)

Like I said, you can also use magnet letters! They fit great on the cards!

Here's an example of that - I also created a twist on the Secret Sight Words concept by making Secret Sign Language Sight Words! It's the same concept but instead of figuring out beginning sounds, students identify each letter of the sight words in sign language.

These are great for your fast finishers or students who love an extra challenge. I include a sign language alphabet reference chart so your students can easily figure out each letter in sign language. I also love this center because it makes it even more hands on... literally! Once students build the sight word, they'll love signing each letter for the word to spell the word in sign language. Not only will it help them learn the sight word and how to spell it but they're also learning sign language and any time we get movement involved, there is more learning! I remember taking a sign language enrichment class in elementary school and I absolutely LOVED it. I can still sign "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys and I'm not ashamed. I'm so cool. Again, don't judge me!

I have also made these for PHONICS sounds!! They're just one of my favorite things ever so I keep making them because they are engaging and kids have no idea they're learning!